Like the strange, mechanical ticking that relentlessly sounds in the background of the soundtrack, we are being pursued by something unstoppable and inhuman. The mask makes Myer’s face white and utterly expressionless when glimpsed while causing his breath to be muffled and intensified for a sound that is not altogether human. It comes perhaps as no surprise that John Carpenter cited Bernard Hermann, that master of nerve jangling sound, as an influence on this soundtrack.Īnother neat trick Carpenter employs is to have the boogey man, Michael Myers, wear a creepy mask and again, this has both a visual and aural effect. And simple as the theme sounds, the 5/4 rhythm of the piano is actually quite sophisticated and lends the soundtrack its madly driven quality. The combination of high and fast piano notes like a racing mind and the low, unstoppable bass masterfully underscores this visual effect. We peer through a window frightened, but still safe, at something untoward going on at a neighbor’s house.
Interestingly, contrasting backgrounds and foregrounds is a unique and effective characteristic of the movie’s visual effects. The latter was created by synthesizers and perfectly – because jarringly – compliments the anxious plinkity plinking of the piano. Infectious, maddening – director John Carpenter’s original score for this 1978 horror masterpiece is the perfect combination of hectic, jagged highs played on a piano, a steady heartbeat, a weird machine-like puttering and a low, ominous bassline. They are also the perfect chaotic counterpoint to Janet Leigh’s scream of sheer terror, making that moment as memorable aurally as it is visually. The screeching strings in the famous shower scene are even more intense, wonderfully mimicking and intensifying the fright caused by Anthony Perkins in the role of knife-wielding madman. Marion’s angst-filled ride is conveyed much more by the music than the monotonous stretch of highway she travels. Sure, she seemed a bit nervous before, but the music lets us know that she’s on a no-way-back kind of journey now.
UNSTOPPABLE MOVIE MUSIC SOUNDTRACK SERIES
A minor-major seventh chord played in series of staccato eighth notes is the perfect musical expression of Marion’s – and our – anxiety. For instance, we know that Janet Leigh’s character Marion has done something very wrong when we hear those agitated strings from the intro kick in again as she drives away from town. Starting at the intro, Hermann’s anxiety-inducing composition sets the tone along with the vertical lines that slice the screen horizontally and vertically – stylish, edgy, and a visual nod to that famous shower scene.Īs much as the visuals, the soundtrack guides our emotions through the story, alerting us to impending danger, creating tension and heightening our sense of terror.
But Hitch was right: Psycho would not be the icon of ultra creepiness it is without Bernard Hermann’s soundtrack. Hitchcock himself admitted that “33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music.” Odd choice of number aside, that’s quite an admission from a director famous for controlling nearly every aspect of his films.